


It'd be a Shame

by Darkling_Day



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adult Frisk, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bad Puns, F/M, Female Frisk, Grillby has a Terrible Life, Grillby's, M/M, Mafia Sans, Maybe Smut...?, Minor Grillby/Sans, No Smut, Papyrus is a cinnamon bun, Sans Remembers Resets, Stockholm Syndrome, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, actually I don't know if it qualifies as smut, mafiatale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:52:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkling_Day/pseuds/Darkling_Day
Summary: Grillby has been a little late on his payments to the mob, and a certain skeleton comes to collect. Frisk and Sans have an argument about their future.Mafiatale AU





	It'd be a Shame

The loud knocking on the door was growing louder and more insistent. Grillby just growled at the noise, trying to block it out by concentrating on sweeping up the last few shards of glass on the floor. He had attempted to drown it out earlier with sound the smooth jazz emanating from the record player. To little avail, he knew, as the knocking continued every few seconds. It was almost like a drummer playing a beat: three loud, drawn-out knocks, then two seconds of silence, then more knocks, then more silence. It grew irritating quickly.

It had been an especially long night for Grillby: four bar fights had broken out that night, and his intimidating stature and the very fact that he was made of fire, which was usually enough to do the trick, had failed to prevent them from escalating. Three people had left bleeding or covered in their own dust, and many more left with bruised faces or broken bones. And of course, he had to clean up after those drunken combats by himself because his goddamn barmaid was on her honeymoon. After that, turning out the usual drunks had been a hassle, even more so than usual. Many had even fallen asleep at the bar or their tables, and had required rousing. Then he got to cleaning up the messes of the night: grease stains from the food that he actually liked to serve, puddles of beer and other alcohol and even more vomit than usual, the shards of glass and the blood and the dust covering the ground. He had winced when he had realized how scratched up one of the tables had gotten when a drunk Icecap had lost their minds to their appletini and started spinning like a top, much to the crowd’s enjoyment. _That_ he would need to replace later.

The knocking was even louder still. Grillby didn’t even bother to think about how that could be possible. He looked down at his watch. 3:39 P.M. About an hour and a half after he usually was supposed to close. The knocking had only been there for five minutes or so. With a sigh, he leaned his broom up against the wall, having collected all the glass shards and a reasonable amount of dust into a corner of the room, and walked over to the plain, wooden door. There wasn’t anything spectacular about it, but the fact that it was tough enough to handle Grillby’s heat when he didn’t bother to restrict it with magic was enough to make him love it. He breathed in, wiped the condensation from his glasses, breathed out, and opened the door inwards, shivering as the breath of cold (70º) air hit him.

“Look, ‘buddy’, it’s almost four in the fucking _morning_. We’re closed.”

This all he said before he realized that there wasn’t anyone there at the door.

He stuck his head out into the street, the flames wreathing him growing small as they were exposed to the cool night air, and looked around. The street was totally empty: nobody was walking around the city at this time of night unless they had some shady business to deal with. In fact, his was the only building that still had lights in the windows, and that was only because of his natural illumination. He rubbed his eyes and took another look around. God, he was exhausted. He was definitely going to sleep in that day.

Somebody had just been _knocking_ on his door for five straight minutes, then the moment he came to answer it, they had just run away. _Fucking kids_ , Grillby thought to himself as he slammed the door with a satisfying *BANG*. He was starting to get really annoyed with the neighborhood he was in. Some part of his mind was thinking it might be a good idea to move. Probably out of New York City entirely: maybe somewhere down south? He heard that the winters in Texas weren’t all that bad. Maybe he could move down to Austin or something and open up a good restaurant, rather than this dingy bar that made him hate his life. His real passion was as a cook, not a bartender.

Humming to the jazz coming from the phonograph, he turned around to resume his work. He took a few steps towards where he had leaned the broom up against the wall before he stopped. He had just heard something. It was like… a deep chuckle? He was about to shrug and go on his merry way when the source of the sound spoke up in a deep, dark voice that sounded like a knife being dragged down a chalkboard.

“Grillby. Don’t you know how to greet an old pal? Turn around and shake my hand.”

Grillby turned, his fires retracting into himself as his heart felt like it froze in his chest. There, leaning against the door, was a strange, shadowy figure that he couldn’t entirely make out. There was something familiar about the way it carried itself, but Grillby couldn’t tell what. The figure pushed off the wall and reached out a single hand, still shrouded in darkness. Slowly, tentatively, Grillby extended his own fiery limb to the figure, and before he could stop himself, he took the offered hand quickly.

*PLBBBBBBBBBBBBBGH!*

Was that… a fart sound?

The figure laughed familiarly, and Grillby came to a revelation as to who it was. He felt like cursing. Of _course_ it would be him. He hadn’t shown up at the bar tonight, like he had almost every single night for the past three years. Why hadn’t he shown up until now? This boded ill, to say the least.

“heheh… the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it’s ALWAYS funny,” Sans chuckled, his skeletal form suddenly visible in the firelight. Grillby let out a sigh of relief, his fires coming back out of his body and illuminating the room.

Then he realized that he was supposed to be mad at the monster for pulling such a prank on him, so he glared angrily at the skeleton from behind his glasses. “God _damn_ it, Sans! What the hell were you thinking!? I thought you were a robber or something!”

“nah. i’m just a skeleton. which i guess _is_ pretty spooky, when you think about it,” Sans said, winking at Grillby with a malleable eye socket. Grillby was always astounded when he saw that the skeleton was able to do that, but then again, he was literally made of living fire. He chalked it all up to magic.

He looked Sans up and down. The skeleton wasn’t incredibly short when compared to humans, but he was tiny compared to the 6’7” Grillby. His face was perpetually stuck in a smile, though that might have just been an effect of his physiology as a living skeleton. He was dressed like he usually did: a dirty brown trench coat stained with ketchup and other, less-savory fluids over a wrinkled white shirt and pants that weren’t even pressed. The slob was too lazy to get his clothes cleaned and prepared the right way. The only piece of the outfit that wasn’t terribly messed up was the hat, but only because Sans had always taken it off right after entering a building. He also usually took off the trench coat (as was polite), but he managed to get it dirty anyway. It was almost like he went out of his way to look slovenly.

Something was odd, though, and Grillby could pick it out right away: he hadn’t taken off his coat and hat, like he would any other time. He was about to point that out, but Sans had crossed the room much quicker than he would have believed and had taken a seat at the bar. “you wouldn’t mind getting me a bottle of ketchup, would ya? it’d _warm_ my heart, you know,” the skeleton said without even opening his mouth. Grillby couldn’t help but grin inwardly at that: say what you want about Sans, but he was pretty easy to please when it came to his favorite beverage.

But to keep up his side of the repartee he and Sans kept up, he had to groan as he walked to grab a bottle of ketchup from the stash he kept under the bar. He went through the things quicker than any other establishment in town, especially since most customers didn’t come for the food, but he made a respectable profit off of selling them almost exclusively to Sans. “That pun wasn’t even good!”

“hey, throw me a _bone_ , wouldja?” Sans said as he graciously accepted the bottle of ketchup. Then, in one swift motion, he tore off the lid and began to drink the red liquid directly from the bottle. Grillby had been grossed out when he had first seen Sans do such a thing, but who was he to judge? Everyone has different tastes.

There was a comfortable silence for a time, filled only by the smooth jazz record that Grillby had picked (it was a good collection, by a group called “Insane in the Rain” or something) and the crackling of Grillby’s component fire. Then he finally asked the skeleton, “So… why are you here, anyway? Just had to get your fix of the ketchup?”

“nah. i mean, it’s still the best ketchup i’ve ever tasted-” Grillby almost laughed at that. He just bought it by the truckload from that Heinz company “-but mostly, it was just to talk to you, hot stuff.”

“Uhh…” Grillby blushed, his cheeks glowing with white-hot flame. Sans was a flirty fellow, usually, but he had never hit on his fiery bartender before. “Look, Sans, I like you and all, but not _that_ way. I mean-”

“oh, no, no, you must have gotten the wrong impression, grillbz,” Sans laughed, waving his hands as if that would show that he had meant nothing by it. In some part of his mind, Grillby was… disappointed? That’s an odd feeling. “i’m actually in a very stable relationship right now with a hot piece of ass that is _not_ a fire monster. i’m here to inform you that you’ve been a little late on your _payments_.”

Grillby struggled to keep his face calm. He had known that skipping out on those payments would come to bite him in the back eventually. He just hadn’t expected them to send _Sans_ after him. He knew the skeleton’s reputation as well as the next guy, but he had grown to like the monster and enjoy his company. Sending his friend after him… that was a low move, even for the Godfather. “L-look, b-buddy, business h-hasn’t been the g-greatest recently. I-I can’t afford to m-make this payment.” He was so nervous that steam began to rise from his body. Oh, God, he was sweating. In his new shirt, too.

“oh, i understand you completely, grillbz. i know how it’s been the past couple of months: i’ve been here, remember? so i managed to convince ol’ fluffybuns to forgive you this one time.” Grillby sighed in relief and wiped the condensation from his glasses with his shirt sleeve. Sans had reached down beneath the counter and grabbed for himself another bottle of ketchup.

“Oh, thank you Sans! Y-you’re a lifesaver!” he cried, barely restraining the urge to hug the skeleton. His flames surged outwards as his emotions soared. “I *sniff* I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“you’re welcome, bud. but next quarter, we expect the payment in full. no half-assing it like you did last time. remember: this is an awful nice establishment you’ve got here. it’d be a real SHAME if something were to  h a p p e n  t o  i t .” For those last couple of words, Sans’ eye lights completely disappeared, his eye sockets becoming empty voids that seemed completely empty of any emotion whatsoever. That, in addition to the smile which now seemed slightly psychotic, was enough to terrify Grillby. He had a really hard time not trying to take down the skeleton then and there.

Not that it would work, of course. Sans was famous throughout the Underground, the monster criminal network that spanned the world, for his… special talents. He could get in and out of anywhere without notice or leaving a trace, and could dodge any attack thrown his way. It was said that during the first World War, he had decimated thousands of German soldiers alone, more than every other monster who had fought in the war combined. He had been highly decorated for his courageous actions during the war, receiving medal after medal from the highest ranking of generals. Now, instead of fighting for the cause of the free world, he was fighting at the behest of the monster Godfather, Asgore Dreemurr.

And then the skeleton had walked into Grillby’s one day and gave Grillby an offer he couldn’t refuse. It was either take him up on his offer of “protection”, or face the consequences of angering the Underground. After that, he had had no option but to accommodate the skeleton, who had quickly turned into his best customer. Not because he liked the drinks (Sans said he had sworn to abstinence after a night out on the town that had ended especially badly), but because he found the food delicious and the ketchup even more so. So the skeleton that could terrify the entire world with a grin and a wink regularly walked into a dark, dingy bar in a place that most regarded as a bad part of town to eat, drink, and make bad jokes.

But at times like these, Grillby was reminded of why he was so terrifying. As Sans’ eye lights returned, he winked at the man made of fire and shrugged. “but, hey, no pressure, though. i’m sure we can get you some business. i really do like you, grillbz. i don’t want to have to shut this place down.” And with that, the skeleton was almost to the door before Grillby noticed. “trust me, bud, business is really gonna _heat_ up real soon.” And with that awful pun, Sans swung the door open and slammed it shut behind him.

Grillby just sat there for a moment, dumbstruck, before rushing to the door to get a glimpse of Sans leaving. But it was already too late: the skeleton was already a long, long way away.

 

***      *      *      *      ***

 

Sans broke down laughing the moment he got home. Oh, man. He had _always_ wanted to say that line, “it’d be a real SHAME if something were to happen to it.” And now he had a real opportunity to do it that wasn’t in jest. At least, not entirely.

Sans really had no intentions of doing anything to Grillby’s bar. He would probably keep finding some way to pay the “protection fee” out of his own pocket if Grillby kept on being a little short on the cash. He really didn’t want to add this to his fiery friend’s plate, but he had no choice. Rules of the business and all that jazz.

First he kicked off his shoes and sent them flying across the floor. Then, he took off his familiar trench coat and hat and flung them onto the couch, not bothering to use the coat rack in the corner. Papyrus could just pick them up later, like he always did. Then Sans collapsed on the couch as well, sprawling across his discarded clothing. Or not. Damn, it was getting to be a real pain to keep replacing that hat.

The TV wasn’t on. Sans sighed at that. It’s not like there would be anything good on, anyway. Probably just some stupid Mettaton show that his brother would eat right up. So instead, he just magicked a newspaper off the table and into his hands. Nothing great there, either. Something about the damn Temmies and their village. The monstrous metropolis that was still “affectionately” called the Temmie Village had consumed half of Tennessee by now, and its mayor, Bob (the Tem) had managed to govern shrewdly and effectively. Of course, Bob was on the payroll of Asgore, the true ruler of monsterkind, but he was smart enough in own right. Especially by Tem standards.

He discarded the newspaper headlined “hOI!: TEMMIE VILLAGE CONTINUES TO GROW” and wondered if he should read a book. Too much effort, he decided quickly. He had already read everything worth reading, and most of it was decades behind what he already knew. He blamed his father for his extensive scientific knowledge. Too bad the old man had screwed up an experiment one day and ended up scattered across space and time.

Not really. He had been a really terrible person, after all.

Since he had exhausted all other options of things to do at “almost four in the fucking morning”, Sans knew that he had no other option than to just go upstairs and go to bed. Something that he had been dreading since he left that morning.

As he ascended the stairs, he ran over the memory again, looking for anything to get him out of the inevitable fight that was to come. When that failed, he just ran over the events of the day in his mind, looking for any excuse. Still, nothing that would help. He was beginning to wonder what would happen if he just didn’t come home tonight by the time he reached the top of the stairs. He turned to walk down the hall to his room, but he stopped when he heard a creak. It wasn’t the floor beneath his feet, which meant it must be…

“BROTHER!” a booming voice declared from behind him. Sans flinched at the noise: if there had ever been any chance of getting out of this without an argument, there certainly wasn’t any now. “YOU HAVE RETURNED!”

Sans whipped around quickly, his feet barely even touching the floor. There, standing fully bedecked in his pajamas, was Papyrus, one of the most powerful enforcers in the Underground. Perhaps the most powerful, aside from Sans himself. It was really hard to believe he was ever intimidating, seeing him like this. His pajamas, for example, were a vibrant red and covered in the image of a little white dog that vaguely annoyed Sans for some reason he couldn’t determine.

“for heaven’s sake, papyrus, quiet down!” Sans whisper-shouted at his brother. “you’ll wake her up!”

“(OH, SORRY!)” Papyrus said in a very loud stage whisper that was little better than how he had been talking before. Sans sighed: if there was constant in the world, it was his brother’s propensity for noise. Pigs would fly before Papyrus ever learned to speak at less than full volume. “(HOW WAS YOUR DAY?)”

“it was pretty good. i guess you could call it a… _sans_ ational day.” Sans immediately regretted the pun when his brother groaned loudly enough to make his ears ring. “i just dealt with some business that the boss wanted me to take care of.”

Aside from handling Grillby’s tardiness, Sans had actually done a lot for the Godfather that day. He had resolved a few missed payment disputes, some ending in a briefcase full of cash deposited outside Asgore’s manor, others ending in a pile of dust that had once been a human or a monster: both shared the same fate when confronted with Sans’ gaster blasters. Then he had been so lucky as to get to make a business deal with a previous rival from Vegas, one that he thought had ended well for both parties. And right before stopping by Grillby’s, he had ended up on the opposite side of the world, stealing several tons of opiates from right underneath everyone’s noses. A good day, complete with at least seven breaks. And free lunch. And a chat with Grillby. It would have been perfect, if not for the disaster that morning had been.

“(AH… KEEPING UP THE GOOD WORK, HUH, SANS?)”

“uh… you could say that, sure.”

Papyrus didn’t really understand what the whole business was about. Which was probably for the best, really. Papyrus was under the assumption that they were actually protecting people from enemies, and treated his job as such. He actually walked around all day (and often all night) and defended the various businesses under his purview from harm. He had legitimately stopped three robberies from occurring, and even once caught on to a bank heist and stopped it in its tracks. Sans wasn’t about to disabuse his brother of the notion that their job was actually helping people.

“(AND NOW YOU HAVE TO CONFRONT THE MISSUS, HUH?)”

“how many times do i have to tell you that we’re not married yet, paps?”

“(AS MANY AS IT TAKES YOU TO ADMIT IT!)” Papyrus raised his hands to his mouth in glee. “(EVEN IF YOU AREN’T TECHNICALLY MARRIED, YOU BASICALLY ARE, ANYWAYS! THE GREAT PAPYRUS KNOWS IT!)” Then Papyrus chuckled his usual “Nyeheheh”. At full volume.

Sans sighed once again. He seemed to be doing that a lot recently. Well, there was a lot to sigh about nowadays, wasn’t there? “look, i’ve got to get in there and talk to her. then maybe get some sleep. it’s been a whole day since i’ve managed to do that.”

“(YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T NAP ON YOUR BREAK TIMES?)”

“i didn’t.” He did, but it was in a different time zone, so he wasn’t sure it counted.

“(WOW. YOU REALLY HAVE MATURED, BROTHER.)”

“yeah. but i’m pretty bone-tired now, so i’ve got to get some sleep. i’ve been running on coffee all day.”

“(OKAY. WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO AND WASTE YOUR NIGHT ‘SLEEPING’. *AUDIBLE WINK*)” Sans wasn’t sure what was more disturbing: what his brother was implying he would be doing instead of sleeping, or the fact that he had managed to make a wink hearable. That trick of Papyrus would do him well with the ladies – well, it would if he were into ladies. Instead, Sans was pretty sure that his brother had taken his celebrity crush on the glamorous robotic star Mettaton a bit too far.

Papyrus slipped back inside his room, slamming his door shut in an agonizingly slow fashion. Sans shook his head. Papyrus couldn’t manage silence even if he tried, could he?

He advanced past his brother’s door and stood before his own. It was a plain door, with no ornament even remotely close to what Papyrus’ bore, or any at all, actually. It was funny: he couldn’t remember having to open it himself in a long, long time. Normally, he would just take a shortcut up the stairs and into his room, stepping right into his bed where he would collapse, exhausted from a long day’s work. No matter how lazy people said he was, he did too much for that to be true. He was Asgore’s right hand skele-man, after all, and his most oft-used agent. And despite the fact that he had dismantled an entire _country_ at his Godfather’s command, he was terrified of opening the door to his own bedroom.

Welp. Nothing to it but heading in. Sans slipped the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind him as slowly as possible. He sighed as it shut noiselessly behind him.

There it was: his room. Almost totally dark, but his magic eye allowed him to see with perfect clarity. In the past, it might have been a mess, but in this day and age, it was clean except for a single trash tornado in the corner that had been impossible to remove, even for someone as determined as the one who had cleaned it. The bed was made – with actual covers! – and there was a lump in it that signified _her_ presence. Sans sighed in relief when he saw that she was not moving except for the faint rising and falling of the covers that signified she was breathing. Slowly, he inched across the floor and crawled into the bed beside her, careful to pull the covers atop himself. He was a bit too tired to remove his clothes before bed tonight.

Feeling his presence, she curled up to his side with a pleased-sounding noise. Sans smiled and closed his eyes, ready to drift off into the sweet void of sleep. She muttered something quietly into his shoulder which his half-sleeping mind didn’t quite understand.

“what’s that, pumpkin?” he asked, pressing his teeth into her hair like the mockery of a kiss.

“Did you do it?” she mumbled quietly, raising her head to look into his eyes. They had snapped wide open at the words.

“d-do what?” he asked, smiling nervously as he sat up in the bed. _oh, god, i’m not ready for this_.

She sat up too, turning to flip on a lamp so she could see. The light illuminated her features: her thin, blue eyes, her shoulder-length brown hair, her large lips, ripe for kissing. Her form was covered in a pale purple nightgown that left very little to the imagination. Sans liked that part: he was reasonably creative, himself, but he’d take the real thing over his own imagination any day.

“You’ve got to be fucking with me.”

“well, yeah, i’d like to, but i get the feeling that’s not what we’re gonna be doing.”

She looked at Sans like he was an idiot. “So… you come back after being out for the whole day, and you mean to tell me you _didn’t_ do what I asked you to do?”

“what you’re askin of me is unreasonable, kid.”

“Don’t ‘kid’ me, you asshole! Yes or no: did you tell Asgore you quit?”

“…”

“Sans? Tell me.”

“…i can’t say the topic arose during our conversations.”

“Fuck you.”

“yes please?”

“Sans, you promised me-”

“i promised nothing of the sort.”

“-you promised me that you would do anything I asked. _Anything_.”

“i didn’t specify anything _within reason_? damn, past me was a real idiot, wasn’t he?”

“And now you mean to tell me that you didn’t do the one thing I asked you to do- no, I _need_ you to do. If we- if we are to be a _thing_ , if this _relationship_ is to continue, I _need_ you to leave the Underground.”

“kid-”

“I have a name, you know. Why don’t you use it?”

“kid, i can’t leave. i’m trapped in it, just like you are. or don’t you remember?”

“Look, I’ve made my peace. I’m willing to leave _everything_ behind! My family, my friends, my goddamn _life_! But you? You don’t even have to leave anything but this house! You can take everything with you! Even your _brother_ , who you won’t even tell the truth about what you do- about what _he_ does!”

“goddamnit, frisk! what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to quit!”

“i can’t do that!”

“Why not?!”

“because i made a promise, that’s why!”

Frisk was silent. Sans had told her that he seldom made a promise, and when he did, he kept it no matter what. He had never broken a promise in his life. At least, that’s what he had told her.

It was remarkable, really. He had made two promises, which now were in opposition. And he couldn’t keep one without breaking the other. He was trapped in a snare of his own devising, and there was no way out. The best he could hope for was to convince Frisk to drop her request.

“What… what promise did you make?”

“…”

“Sans… I understand how important this is to you… but what promise did you make?”

“… i… i promised asgore that… that i would be his judge… his _supreme judge_ over all the underground… forever.”

“… if you’re the judge, what is your judgement?”

“what?”

“If you, Sans the Skeleton, are the Supreme Judge over all the Underground, what is it that you’re judging?”

“i… i was to be the final arbiter in asgore’s new world.”

Sans had told Frisk about Asgore’s grand plan to take over the world. To be free of the “human oppression” that had apparently been plaguing monsters for centuries, all by the use of basic magic and a machine of epic proportions. The machine… had been his father’s idea. Sans had promised to help create the machine and subjugate humanity with it.

That promise, he had broken when he had shoved the smiley bastard into the prototype.

And that broken promise, that no one who existed could remember, would be his burden to bear to his grave.

Frisk would have remembered, of course, had she been alive. That was actually why Sans had kidnapped her in the first place. Because of her mysterious power to change fate. Because of her determination. They had treated her nicely, of course, very respectably. She and Papyrus had become close friends, though Papyrus wasn’t sure why Sans had taken her in the first place. Sans had threatened her father, who was in the hospital because of a coma, if she refused to work for him, setting back time whenever he wanted her to. He never intended to do it, as he had told her later, but the power to change fate was… priceless. He had only used it twice. The first when the house had been raided by the police and Papyrus was killed. The second when he unwittingly aided Asgore steal three human SOULs and set him on the path to godhood. Neither of those situations had been acceptable, so he had her change them. Luckily enough, she wanted nothing more than the same.

And now, she was his lover. What do you know? Sans was tempted to blame it on Stockholm Syndrome, but then she probably would have fallen in love with Papyrus instead.

“And…?” Frisk said after a long silence, shocking Sans out of his thoughts.

“and what?”

“And are you the ‘final arbiter’?”

“no, but-“

“You told me – _you_ – to reset after Asgore began to destroy humanity. That wasn’t my choice, but _yours_.” Where was she going with this?

“i don’t want a world without humanity,” he said slowly, trying to follow her logic.

“Why not? That’s the only world that you can be the Supreme Judge in.”

“because a world without you in it isn’t worth living in.”

There was a short silence as that sunk in. Sans had been the one to fall for Frisk first, anyways. He had felt a connection the first time he saw her and she didn’t look at him with a look of unadulterated hate. He liked that look.

“So you instead turned back time.”

“yep.”

“So you refused to be Supreme Judge.”

“… i… guess so…” he wondered out loud. Was that where she was going with that? But that would mean…

“So you already broke your promise,” she said, triumph evident in her voice. She flashed Sans a smile that he couldn’t help but love. But he was too busy freaking out to notice.

“b-but… i… i d-don’t make p-promises just to b-break them. what’s the p-point in that?” He was smiling wildly, his eye flashing blue on-and-off in his worry. The trash tornado was also spinning all the more quickly, scattering its contents across the room.

“Look, Sans, I love you and all, but you focus too much on keeping promises that don’t deserve to be kept,” Frisk said softly, gently, pulling him into an embrace. And just feeling her arms wrapped around him, and circling his own bony appendages around her, that made up his mind.

“… ok.”

“Ok?”

“yeah. ok.”

“Ok… what?”

“i’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“i’ll quit the underground.”

“Really?!” She seemed so ecstatic. She obviously didn’t understand the hell that Sans was going through mentally right then.

“yep.”

“Oh, Sans!” she cried, kissing him on his mouth. He teased her lips with his magic in response, but pulled back before the kiss turned into something more.

“we’ll leave tomorrow at two or so. that should give you and paps enough time to pack up,” he said as he unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, methodically, giving each and every button exactly the same amount of time.

“Sure, but what about you?” Frisk asked as she began to run her fingers along Sans’ ribs. He was tempted to moan in ecstasy, but this would be to early. So instead, he just slipped off his shirt and moved on to his pants.

“i’ve got a little thing i want to take care of first.” He slipped off his pants and began to gather his magic at his pelvis. Frisk grinned at him and pushed him down onto the bed, a wicked smile on her face. “but right now, i need to ask you a question.”

“And what would that be?” Frisk said, slipping off her nightgown. Her skin was pale, almost as pale as the bone Sans was made out of. Porcelain, he might say if he were in a more poetic mood. But he was content to just say pale for now. So deliciously pale.

“wouldja like to get boned?” With the pun, the last shred of his self-control disappeared, and the glowing member, fully hardened, appeared at his pelvis.

“Oh, God, yes,” she said, and she went down on him.

Suffice to say, nobody got much sleep that night.

 

***      *      *      *      ***

 

Grillby had had an _awful_ night. After his… _encounter_ … with Sans, he had drunk enough to overcome his immense tolerance until his flaming form had turned blue and he couldn’t walk without stumbling over. Then he had woken up on the floor in a pool of his own vomit, which was just especially chunky magma. After regurgitating the contents of his stomach into the toilet that he kept in the back for human customers, had been forced to clean up the remainder of the mess from the previous night _and_ what was left over from his own little drinking session while dealing with a hangover from hell. And by the time he had finished with the cleaning up, it was noon, and his head _still_ pounded like it was hit with hammer blow after hammer blow.

He really would drink a glass of water, but he didn’t touch the stuff.

So instead, he swallowed a few pills that he hoped wouldn’t react too terribly with his monster physiology. They weren’t technically magic-safe, but who cared? They might have helped his head a little but the skull-splitting pain he felt was still there.

_And this, Grillby, is why you don’t drink alcohol on work days._

He had cleaned everything up and had just grilled a burger to munch on for lunch. His burgers weren’t anything spectacular, he thought, but Sans had said that they tasted “like someone had trapped heaven in a beef patty between two pieces of bread”. Of course, Sans did tend to be hyperbolic on occasion, but it was still high praise. It was enough to make Grillby smile inside. Because he liked the praise. Not necessarily that it was Sans that gave it. That would be ridiculous.

“hey, buddy, you’re looking pretty _blue_. what’s got you down?”

Grillby just looked up at Sans standing above him. When had he lain down? He didn’t remember. He also didn’t remember Sans walking in, for that matter. Was he still drunk? Hopefully not. He’d be blue for the next couple of days, though, until all the alcohol burned off.

“What do you want, Sans?” he growled, probably without even a hint of menace in his voice. Because of his current condition, not because he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at Sans. He had tried before he went to sleep on the floor, and it hadn’t worked.

“well, i _mustache_ you a question, but i’ll _shave_ it for later.” Sans’ grin grew even wider, somehow. Grillby groaned.

“I’m not a fucking barber, Sans.”

“well, hey, a pun’s a pun. can’t blame a BARK for trying.”

“Temmie jokes? Seriously?”

“hey, all’s fair in fun and war. or was it love and fun? eh, it’s an old saying. nobody’s gonna check if i’m right.” Sans’ grin grew softer for a second, and worry was evident in his eyes. “but seriously, are you alright? you look like you had a tough night.”

“Well, it was bad enough before you showed up and threatened to burn my bar to the ground if I didn’t pay up.”

“hey, i’ll leave the burning part to you, hot shot.” Sans winked, and Grillby thought he might have just heard something strange. Was that… wink _audible_? “if your tone is any measure, you’re probably gonna be ok. juuuuuuusst… not right now. welp. i guess that means you’re well enough to answer my question.”

“And what question would that be?” Grillby snarled at the skeleton. Whatever weird feelings he was having, he was starting to feel genuinely pissed at the skeleton right now.

“alright. so, hypothetically, if you could go anywhere in world and do anything you wanted… where would it be?”

Grillby just lay there and thought for a moment. Where would he go? He remembered a train of thought that he had had the night before, but in his current state, he could barely make sense of it.

“So… I guess I would want to go to Texas or something and open up a burger joint. I fucking hate this bar.”

“so you’ve said. plus, those burgers are _delicious_ , no joke. that… actually doesn’t sound half bad.” Sans was considering something. Probably. At least one of the Sans’ was doing that. The other one was straddling Grillby and pulling off his vest, then his shirt, then- he drove the thought from his mind and focussed on reality. “here, let’s get you up.”

A boney hand grasped Grillby’s arm and hoisted him to his feet faster he could have anticipated. He immediately almost fell over again, but Sans was there to catch him. He heard Sans say something, but he was so lightheaded, he couldn’t really see anything.

“What? he asked loudly, straightening his glasses.

“i said, is there anything you really, really want to bring with you?” Sans said questioningly, that concerned look back in his eyes.

“Oh! Uh, no, not really. The only thing I’d really want to bring would be my glasses, and I’ve got them right here.”

“ok, then, let’s go.” And Sans began to try and assist him to the door, but Grillby stood still, refusing to move.

“What do you mean, ‘go’?”

“y’know, like, leave, depart, go away, skedaddle, split town, all that jazz. head to the big ‘t’ really quick and start over.”

Grillby’s head was spinning. He had no clue what was even going on anymore. All he knew was that Sans was there, offering to take him away from this godawful pit stain that people called a city. “What the fuck, sure. I don’t have anything better to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, I literally just had this idea today, so I decided to write it, and it ended up being a bit more than I had originally anticipated writing. So I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Mafiatale is not an AU that I know a whole lot about, but I liked the concept and I wrote this up for fun. I'm honestly exhausted. This took a lot out of me, but it was a good distraction from my regular story, Dust to Dust. Also, there's a few more ships in this, and shipping is a heck of a lot of fun.
> 
> If you want me to do another one shot, leave a comment, and I might do it! I don't know if I'll get to it or not, but I do want to do more of these.
> 
> Have a wonderful day!


End file.
